bad poems #10: feeling like white noise at the social science department café where i like to study because it has an almost perfect level of white noise noise that doesn't suffocate like complete silence does but also isn't too loud or distracting (except during lunchtimes when people sit at my table and speak at length about their boring lives) and where i can get a hot drink for very cheap

i

earlier i spilled tea

all over myself in the

ssl café

ii

55p tea

regular, milk and sugar

in a huge cup that

iii

i didn't put a

lid on because... i don't know

i guess i'm just dumb

iv

i was opening

my notebook to check something

about h. wölfflin

v

when it fell over

a burning sensation on

my lap and my thighs

vi

it splashed on the floor

(but thank god not my laptop)

i had to move spots

vii

my body was moist

my brand new brown pants felt cold

against my sad skin

viii

only after a 

while did i notice that my

favorite shirt, which

ix

i bought in japan

was wet, and would stain slowly

as it dried, a brown

x

patch with dark edges

i thought about going home

(which was very close)

xi

to change my shirt and

soak this one before it stains

but i had only

xii

recently arrived

at the ssl to do

some work, finally

xiii

and could not bear the

waste of time and energy

i also could not

xiv

simply take off

my shirt because the turtle-

neck is see through. so

xv

i have been sitting

here, sunken into a deep

inexplicable

xvi

state of depression

as if that tea had been my

only connection

xvii

to some kind of will

to live. i don't know if this

stain will wash out now

xviii

and it fills me with

incomprehensible sadness.

i'm demotivated.

xix

i was going to

go to edamame but

i don't think curry

xx

will heal me today.

nothing seems to matter now

all i want is to

xxi

lie in my bed and...

wait. no, not that. i want to...

i don't know. i want...

xxii

some kind of respite

(temporary) from being

conscious and feeling

xxiii

so i can stop this

void that has opened itself

in my tea-stained chest.